An Overdue Conversation
by Shutterbug5269
Summary: My post ep for Limelight...some spoilers present but not that many.


*Author's note* I hope you like my one shot post ep for "Limelight"

**An Overdue Conversation**

Kate Beckett was sitting on the couch, alone in the loft, sipping a cup of chamomile tea. She had had the whole place to herself most of the day while Rick was helping Alexis move out of the apartment she had shared with Pi the last few months and back into the dorms. Though Rick had asked her to come along more than once, she figured Alexis would have a hard enough time coming to terms with her dad. Especially after the hard time she had been giving him both before and since moving in with Pi. Kate didn't think throwing herself into the mix would help matters.

Rick and Alexis had reassured her numerous times to the contrary, but Kate believed it would be an awkward enough situation for both of them without her there. The poor girl had had enough trouble opening up to her father as it was. Kate was self aware enough to know that the two of them needed some time to reconnect as father and daughter. She had had a similar experience when her dad had finally gotten sober. She could see the situation from Alexis' point of view quite clearly.

All of a sudden her introspection was broken by a loud authoritative knock at the door. Kate didn't know how long she had been wavering about answering it when the sharp rhythmic knocking began again. She was sure Rick wasn't expecting anyone, and the boys knew better to infringe on their private time at home unless a body had dropped, especially when she wasn't on call. She still found it odd to refer to Rick's place as home, especially when talking to the boys or Lanie as she still had her own apartment, but far too many of her things had migrated here since she was fired from her FBI job, came back from DC and had gotten her job at the 12th Precinct back.

The knocking continued sporadically as she ran her fingers through her hair and slipped on a pair of ballet flats. She was shocked when she walked to the door and opened it to find Rick's publisher and ex-wife number two, Gina Cowell standing on the other side.

The elegant and professional looking woman had a look of determination on her features that she had not seen since that afternoon in the precinct when she had taken Castle by the arm and her own open heart had been left shattered on the precinct floor. She choked back the mild twinge of hurt and jealousy from the memory of the last time the two of them had met (not to mention the tabloid story from the last few days) and did her best to sound cordial and appear unfazed. If she could face down mobsters, serial killers and rogue US Senators she could handle being face to face with ex wife number two.

"Gina! Hi! If you're looking for Rick, he's..." Kate began awkwardly with a shy smile, trying to be polite to Rick's publisher, hoping to diffuse whatever writing deadline lapse had brought Gina to his door.

"...helping Alexis move back into the dorms." Gina interrupted, "Yes, I know, he told me when he canceled our weekly business lunch today."

Kate cringed inwardly at the knowledge that said lunches had actually been a regular thing. She had thought up until recently that Rick had just been making lame excuses to get out of helping with paperwork. Just the one that had made the tabloids on a slow news day had managed to nearly drive her insane. It had taken a long phone call to Aunt Teresa to convince her to take the post about it off of her Facebook page and another to convince two of her cousins not to drive into the city to threaten Rick with bodily injury.

Realistically, she knew Rick had to have dealings with Gina and he likely felt such meetings would be more civil if they were held someplace reasonably public. Her professional reputation would demand it, the blowup at Le Cirque that ended their previous attempt at reconciliation notwithstanding.

"Rick should be back in a couple hours or so if you wanted to wait for him, or...maybe come back later." Kate said, hoping for dear life that she would choose the latter.

"Actually, I'm not here to see Rick, Detective. I wanted to...speak with you...in private." Gina replied, looking for all the world like she would rather chew off her own arm so she could be anywhere but there. "I called ahead to Eduardo, rode a towncar with tinted glass and used the parking garage entrance so I wouldn't cause a scene."

"Me?" Kate choked out, completely shocked as she motioned for Gina to come inside, not realizing she had looked up and down the hallway while doing so, her hand unconsciously drifting to where her gun would be if she had been wearing it. Briefly paranoid that a camera would poke around the corner, "Why me?"

Gina seemed to be contemplating the toes of her Manolo Blahniks for the few minutes it took to make her way through the loft and sit at the breakfast bar. Her easy familiarity with the inside of the loft allowed her to cover the distance without looking up, which managed to slightly unnerve Kate a little. Leaving Kate's mind was spinning with the knowledge that this woman had once lived in the loft and slept in the bed that _she_ and Rick now shared. Gina...who had obviously not lead him on the long difficult chase to the altar that she had been these past six years. The only reassurance Kate felt she was being offered by the other woman's presence was the fact that Gina Cowell seemed to be every bit as uncomfortable with the current state of affairs as she was.

"Detective, Beckett..." She began,

"Please, call me Kate"

"Okay... Kate..." Gina digested that for a moment then launched back into what was obviously a statement she had practiced over and over again before she came out.

"I wanted you to know that I'm terribly sorry about the whole page six thing that came up recently, and that I had nothing to do with it. In spite of our past history, Kate, I wasn't trying to mess with your engagement or your relationship with Rick."

Kate was shocked, to say the least. Though she hadn't seriously entertained the notion that Gina would do such a thing, the fear that she might swoop back in and take Rick from her a second time had figured into some of the less than fun dreams she'd been having the last few nights. It was one of many reasons she had finally placed the engagement notice in the paper and make sure people saw it. She needed to stake her claim and end the rampant speculation. Needed the world to know the "White Whale" was hers.

"Meredith pulled stuff like that when Rick and I first got engaged." Gina continued, "She caused a media shitstorm for weeks...sneaking in and out of the loft at all hours of the day and night...insisting to me she was just "visiting Alexis" but made sure there were photos of her coming and going...it was mortifying. After we were married, she tried to seduce him at a book launch for one of the Derek Storm novels...I forget which one. I ended up having to call the lawyers and made Rick change the locks. I know how that feels, Kate...that kind of crap is her style not mine."

Kate had made herself ignore the fact that Rick was a public figure for far too long, having insisted that they keep first their relationship and then their engagement a secret. She had gotten him to entirely rearrange his life (not to mention his bedroom) to leave her own privacy intact, without thought for how the lack of public acknowledgment of their shared life was affecting him.

She knew it was about time she allowed herself to fully enter his world just like Rick had been drawn inexorably deeper into hers for so very long now. She was done with hiding from his celebrity, she didn't really relish such public scrutiny into her private life, but she knew that this was the price to be paid for having the side of him the public didn't get to see. The man he really was, whom she had fallen madly in love with and didn't want to share.

A price she was more than happy to pay to have him as her one and done. This recent incident had merely been the last straw. The wake up call to the life she was happily marrying into. One she wanted to walk into with her eyes open and he head held high.

"Unlike Meredith, I'm a big girl Kate," Gina continued, "and I know how to let go. Rick and I had our shot. Our second try made it abundantly clear that we are and probably always were completely wrong for each other romantically. I have enough class to know that that part of our history is done."

Kate nodded. She had no idea what to say to Gina. She had not expected this much from her.

"I know that you and I will likely never be the best of friends," Gina concluded, "but you will be in his life, so for his sake you and I need to at least be able to get along."

Kate nodded in understanding. Gina was right, because she had no intention of letting Rick get away now, they had worked to hard to get to this moment. Kate gave the woman her first genuine smile since answering the door.

"Thank you for coming, Gina, I really appreciate it. I know it couldn't have been easy for you."

Gina nodded, and got up to head for the door, eager to be elsewhere before Rick got home.

"Kate, if you need help dealing with Meredith, feel free to call me, or Paula. We know how to handle her, and it's our job to handle this sort of thing. I'll have a statement in tomorrow's Ledger to congratulate you two and to inform them of the true nature of our meeting."

"Thanks, Gina, I just might have to take you up on that." Kate replied.

Just before she pulled the door closed, Gina leaned in and grinned wickedly, "Oh, and by the way, tell Rick for me, if he doesn't have three more chapters each, _and_ his picks for the cover art of the next Nikki Heat and Derek Storm novels on my desk by this time next week, I'll do things to him to make sure that Alexis _stays_ an only child."

After the door clicked loudly shut, and Kate heard the clacking of Gina's heels disappear into the distance, Kate whispered out loud.

"Over my dead body."


End file.
